Had written a short story some time back, thought of sharing it today
It was a warm summer evening. Lying
down on the terrace after a long day’s work, Aparajita couldn’t help but smile.
After all Papaji had spoken to her today for the first time in three years. He
had said he was proud of her. Tears came trickling soon after and Aparajita
couldn’t help but think about the fateful night three years ago when she had
told her family of her decision to cancel admission in IIT Delhi for M Tech and
start up her own firm to educate farmers in the village. Papaji had been angry,
she was the first in the family to go for post-graduation and now she was
floundering it away for some stupid idea. She remembered how she had pleaded,
how she had tried to make them understand that she couldn’t absorb the idea of
sitting in an air-conditioned office while her friends in the village were
crushed under mountains of debts.
She couldn’t fathom the idea of another Madan.
Mummyji had started crying in her typical way “We shouldn’t have sent her to
the city, look what she has become now”. She remembered she had mentioned Madan
in the hope that this might make her see her decision in a new light and how
Papaji had exploded “Yes! I had warned him of the dangers of getting into
farming and now look what happened, the same that I had feared; he committed
suicide because he couldn’t pay back the loan”.
To her Madan was like her own
brother. She had spent countless evenings with him while he had worked in her
father’s shop. He had called up her one day when she was studying in the city
“Didi, I am leaving the shop. I am going to start farming again on Bapu’s
land”. She remembered the excitement, the energy in his voice. And then two
years later he was dead, dead because his crops withered away due to lack of
rain, dead because he couldn’t pay back the loan he had taken from the loan
sharks.
It had not been easy. She had already
lost her family’s support. Teachers and friends were also not very encouraging.
They kept telling her to keep her dreams realistic. And they were not wrong,
not many people from her village had gone to the city to study engineering.
Rejecting a job offer and then rejecting an admission offer from IIT, she did
seem pretty reckless and too ambitious for her own good. A single girl trying
to set up a business in a village in Maharashtra, she knew it wouldn’t be easy.
The farmers were not willing to listen to her. After all a young girl telling
them how they should change their farming practices; it hurt their ego. But a
few young farmers had come. She had arranged talks by experts on video
conferencing. She told them about the government schemes for farmers. Slowly
and slowly other farmers also joined in. She made sure they had the proper
fertilizers, seeds and equipments. Her efforts did not go in vain.
It had been two years now and thanks
to the increase in farm yield, not a single farmer committed suicide. A few
local papers published her story which caught the attention of some NGOs in
Mumbai. Aparajita was contacted and asked to share her ideas and set up similar
offices in other villages to help more farmers. She put in her life in these efforts.
This wasn’t just a business for her. It was a means to connect with her roots,
it was a means to change lives of the people who had been left untouched by the
growth being witnessed by the urban India.
Her offices were now present in
twenty villages and catered to over a 1000 farmers. Three years into the
business and she had already managed to break even. And then one fine day,
something unexpected happened. Aparajita had just reached her office, her
assistant came running towards her, “Appu, see, what has come!”. It was an invitation
letter to the Republic parade by the Chief Minister, she was to be honored for
bringing about a change in the lives of hundreds of famers. The news made the
banner headlines and she was now a celebrity. Aparajita had become a living
symbol of the adage, ‘Success often comes to those who dare and act, it seldom
comes to the timid.’
Deep into her work, she was spending
another long night at the office when there was a knock. Wondering who it could
be this late at night, she opened the doors. Standing there were her parents.
She couldn’t say anything, she just broke down. Buried in her father’s arms,
she only remembered Papaji telling her how proud he was of her, how much he had
missed her these three years and how he had followed her every move and action.
Tears did not stop, words could not do justice to the waves of emotions in her
heart. The big wide hollow in her heart had finally closed and she knew life
was going to be better now.
